Toronto International Film Festival

TORONTO: ON FESTIVAL STARTS AND THE FORCE OF NATURE THAT IS BROWNIAN MOVEMENT

It’s day four here at the Toronto Film Festival—although based on the post-midnight criteria rather than the 8-hours-of-sleep criteria, I suppose it’s technically day six. The distinctions between days, between periods of lights and darks, have a tendency to become blurry after one’s tenth—or is it the fifteenth?—festival film has come and gone. Already an appalling quantity of fast food has been eaten, numerous cups of coffee have been gratefully slurped, and at least one trusty steno pad, blank as driven snow just moments ago, is nearly full of hieroglyphics that must have meant something when I was scribbling in […]
by Livia Bloom Ingram on Sep 13, 2010
BUSY DAY AT TIFF WITH “SUPER” & “DIRTY GIRL” LANDING DEALS

The first weekend of the Toronto International Film Festival comes to a close with two films finding distribution deals. Earlier today IFC landed the first major deal of the fest with a seven-figure deal for the James Gunn-directed wannabe superhero dark comedy Super, starring Rainn Wilson, Ellen Page, Kevin Bacon and Liv Tyler. And just announced moments ago, The Weinstein Company inked a U.S. deal (and some foreign territories) north of $3 million for Dirty Girl. Starring Juno Temple, Dwight Yoakam, Milla Jovovich and Willam H. Macy, the film, directed by Abe Sylvia, follows a young girl through her journey […]
by Jason Guerrasio on Sep 12, 2010
TORONTO INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL: WINDFALL

After reading a few small articles on wind energy in the Delaware County Times, the New York City-based video and commercials editor Laura Israel, who retreats to a 16’ by 16’ cabin outside the town of Meredith in said county, thought she might do something for the green movement and get a wind turbine—and not have to pay for electricity in the bargain. “I went on the internet and realized, ‘Wind energy is not what I thought.’ I was editing at a place where a guy was doing a tv segment on it as part of green. I told him […]
by Howard Feinstein on Sep 10, 2010
WHAT I’M LOOKING FORWARD TO IN TORONTO

Toronto, the IFP Filmmaker Conference hot on its heels, the New York Film Festival, and, for us, the close of our Fall issue — the season has begun. We’ve already begun work on the magazine, and I’m getting ready to go Toronto, where I’ll join Howard Feinstein and Livia Bloom contributing to the magazine and blog. Of course, the best part of any festival experience is the serendipitous discovery, the word-of-mouth gem you were tipped to or the film you randomly walked into that turned out to be great. I hope to be telling you about some of those over […]
by Scott Macaulay on Sep 9, 2010
“BLACK SWAN” TRAILER

Looks like vintage Aronofsky. Can’t wait to see it. What do you think?
by Jason Guerrasio on Aug 17, 2010
TORONTO ANNOUNCES TITLES FOR 2010 FEST

Titles for the 35th edition of the Toronto International Film Festival were announced today. The mixture of world and North American premieres range from directors like Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden‘s It’s Kind of a Funny Story, to Julian Schnabel‘s Miral to Susanne Bier‘s In A Better World. The full list of titles screening in the Gala and Special Presentations sections are below. TIFF has also announced that the festival, running from Sept. 9 -19, will be extended one day longer this year and in celebration of their 35th year will be running a “TIFF For Free” series were past […]
by Jason Guerrasio on Jul 27, 2010
BONG JOON-HO, “MOTHER”

Mother, the latest film by South Korean director Bong Joon-Ho, is an inky affair. The humor is dark and the sky is a soggy shade of gray. The bumbling characters have limited prospects, and when love exists, it’s intense and deranged enough to kill for. The central relationship in the film is between Yoon Do-Joon, a slow-witted young man, and his unnamed mother. The son is played by Wan Bin, a wide-eyed Korean heartthrob cast effectively against type; his good looks leave us continually disappointed by his character’s slow intellect. His protector, oppressor and champion—also known as his mom—is played […]
by Livia Bloom Ingram on Mar 10, 2010
“DEAR DIARY” — TORONTO’S WAVELENGTHS 6: FLASH POINT CAMERA

In a personal touch, all the filmmakers whose work was showcased in the sixth and final Wavelengths program were present for their screening. German director Ute Aurand presented a reverie on her childhood and family called Snowing Chestnut Blossoms, while American Jim Jennings, apparently a neighbor of mine in Brooklyn, showed a collection of images in Greenpoint that not only documented the quirky, spunky personality of that environ but also reminded me of two pair of boots in that little shoe repair shop with the orange-awning that are just about ready to be picked up.Coleen Fitzgibbon’s FM/TRCS (1974) is an […]
by Livia Bloom Ingram on Sep 20, 2009
“GHOST STORIES” — TORONTO’S WAVELENGTHS 5: UNE CATASTROPHE

Glowing phantoms of days and films past haunted the fifth Wavelengths avant-garde film program at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival, a series of meditations in which, as film programmer Andréa Picard described, “personal expressions of historical and collective memory confront spectres from the past.” Une Catastrophe (pictured), Jean-Luc Godard’s trailer for the Viennale is a companion piece of sorts to the Alonso BIFICI trailer that screened the night before. At once forward-looking and nostalgic (it excerpts and pays homage to Sergei Eistenstein‘s Battleship Potemkin, among other films) Godard’s piece is happily available online here. Apichatpong Weerasethakul, the Thai director […]
by Livia Bloom Ingram on Sep 19, 2009
“BRICK WORK” — TORONTO’S WAVELENGTHS 4: IN COMPARISON

Ironically, a strange, brilliant one-minute trailer for the Buenos Aires Festival International de Cine Independiente (BAFICI) by Argentine director Lisandro Alonso opened the fourth Wavelengths program of avant-garde cinema at the Toronto International Film Festival. In the piece, officially titled S/T (pictured above), an unblinking owl stared in luxuriously saturated color, while pounding drums created a masterful musical score. The work was being asked to function not primarily as advertising but as cinema — and experimental art cinema at that. S/T was followed by In Comparison, a 16mm film by accomplished filmmaker and installation artist Harun Farocki. Born in the […]
by Livia Bloom Ingram on Sep 16, 2009

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